The Burden of Saving Tashī Dalāi-Ch. 1.0(2)


    .


    The wind howled relentlessly. Then, the Jade Chakra Dragon thundered once more.


    Was it wielding the force of the wind, pulling the storm and the avalanche into itself? Or was it weaving something deeper—inflicting the burden of life, foretelling a concept tied to Tashī Dalāi and those tangled in fate?


    I needed to pull myself together.


    But I had never seen anything so alive, so heartbreakingly surreal, that it brought tears to my eyes.


    Master gripped my hand. Drakos trembled in my arms as we trudged through the snow, each step heavier than the last, the icy air slicing at our skin.


    Drakos, we are supposed to save Tashī Dalāi, across those Himalayan peaks.


    I glanced up—perhaps for the last time.


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    And there it was.


    On the dragon’s luminous body, floating maps and faces of many beings flickered into existence—no, not maps, but something closer to a Mandala. A shifting, living network of bright, colorful, brain-wave-like patterns—circular, linear, layered in Chakra Qi meditative formations beyond anything I could fathom. They glowed like neon constellations, shifting across her form, ever-changing, yet bound to an unseen order. I was rather delighted that my mind could even describe them.


    "Drakos," I called out, breath hitching, "East, West, South, North; Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, Southwest; Above and Below."


    A shaky laugh broke past my lips. "But darling, now we ain’t gonna debate the Western ways, right?"


    I wiped away my tears.


    Why does it feel like, suddenly, I know how to describe all this to you, Drakos?


    It was breathtaking—no, beyond breathtaking.


    JC Dragon—yes, immediately I gave The Jade Chakra Dragon a nickname, because somehow, it felt like the right thing to do in this moment.


    Why? Maybe because my needs, my dreams were still unfinished.


    Fear twisted in my gut.


    Something in me had awakened—a built-in ability to contemplate meaning at the worst possible moment.


    Drakos, we must part now.


    I looked up. Bracing for death.


    There was only time for one last glance—at Master. At Drakos.


    Ah. Another death to add to my life.


    That of my own.


    Well, all humans die. You and I—we die.


    That happened.


    Today. 2025.1.1, 21st Century—intertwined with BCE 1st Century of the being; and A.D. 1st Century of the…